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No rain pattered against the roof when I regained consciousness. I didn't know how long I'd been out this time, but outside, the light had dwindled from soft silver to murky green. I was lying on my side in the same room I'd slept in the night before. The floor felt damp beneath my cheek. A sour smell permeated the room, intrusive as an unwanted roommate, and with each breath, I tasted dust and mildew.
I discovered the source of the smell when I raised my head and loose strands of hair, tacky with dried vomit, stuck to the floor.
To make matters worse, the bastard had bound my hands behind my back with something rough and prickly that bit into my wrists when I tried to move. Twine, probably. He'd done a similar number on my feet, but had not incorporated those bonds with the ones around my wrists. Since I wasn't trussed up like a human triangle, I could still move without compromising breathing or circulation. Even more mystifying, he'd left my boots on. On! I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Apparently, Jo's talent for chemical restraints didn't extend to physical ones. That rookie mistake was going to cost him.
I'd make sure of it.
Measured footsteps approached. Metal rasped against metal, then the door latch jiggled. When Jo crept into the room, I closed my eyes, feigning sleep, while he felt my neck for a pulse. Once assured I was still among the living—though nowhere near prime interrogative material—he gave my bonds a quick tug-test. Satisfied, he left, closing the door behind him.
Closing, but not locking. The latch jiggled and metal grated again—tumblers protesting the intrusion of a key—but time passed without a telltale click.
Too much time: numerous scratching, grunting and poking sounds followed, many accompanied by low curses. I soon realized that there was no key: he was trying to execute a reverse lock-pick!
Good luck with that, asshole.
He abandoned his efforts, a scratch-snap and not-so-muffled curse later. A door slammed and a few hollow thuds followed, but then, all sound of him faded away.
Not knowing how long he'd be gone, I had to move quickly. I hadn't returned as planned, which meant that Tetsuo and his men would be looking for me. While I needed to warn them about Jo and what he'd probably done to Yomichi, more than that, I needed to find the Idoron and put Aokigahara far, far behind me. Once out of here, I never wanted to see another forest for as long as I lived.
Of course, before any of that happened, I needed to untie my hands and feet.
I wormed my way into a sitting position and shook my arms until the pins-and-needles sensation passed. Even after it did, my fingers still felt as stiff as frozen sausages. Since I couldn't use my body as a wedge to break my bonds—not if I wanted to keep my upper arms in their sockets—I scanned the room for sharp objects.
The folding chairs nearest me were a no-go. The folding tables with their corroded metal and peeling laminate tops looked promising, at first, yet ultimately, proved equally disappointing. The cheap material broke the moment I applied the slightest bit of friction. That left the window at the other end of the room.
I pivoted my body around and backed to it, inching across the floor on my butt. Wrangling the damned sign out of its base with my back to my work was a tricky bit of business, but after some finely-timed twisting and tugging, it finally pulled free, revealing a jagged shard that looked like a long fang dangling from an open mouth.
Jackpot!
Back to it, pistoning like mad, I managed to saw my hands free, while giving them and my forearms some dandy punctures in the process. By the time I finally cut through it, I was covered in sweat, panting like an overheated dog, and my arms were sticky-slick with blood—but a little blood was a small price to pay for freedom. After staunching the wounds with swaths torn from my t-shirt, I made quick work of the twine around my feet.
I pulled myself up by the windowsill, which set my head reeling and miniature starbursts erupting in my field of vision. No! Passing out was not an option! I leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths until the sensation passed. Then, on still-shaky legs, crossed the room, collected my anorak and helmet, and made my way to the door.
Just as I'd suspected, Jo hadn't been able to lock it. It groaned at my touch but easily gave way. I took a few steps into the room, then stopped, stunned by what I saw. For a moment, I wondered if I hadn't escaped at all and this was a vision from a drug-induced dream.
He'd left my naginata on the counter!
I stood, gawping in abject disbelief for what seemed an enormous length of time. Though part of me still believed that Jo was a paid assassin, Mazawa had certainly scraped the bottom of the barrel to dredge up his one-man Sweeper team. What kind of idiot left a hostage alone with her weapon in plain sight?
The kind who's not going to be a one-man anything for very long.
A quick search behind the counter didn't turn up an MBL or any knives, but that didn't matter. If Jo made an unwanted reappearance, the naginata was all I'd need.
The fire from earlier that morning, now little more than a heap of glowing embers, offered no light in the main room; and those that lay beyond the hallway nearest the fireplace were already awash in deep shadows.
I flipped my helmet light to it lowest setting and crept down the dusty passageway, passing single-sex washrooms with cracked tiles and rust-stained sinks whose faucets had long gone dry. Beyond them was a large open area where plastic tables in faded primary colors competed in the ultimate dust gathering competition with matching benches.
Some boxy machines lay overturned near a group of these. The few still standing had been pushed against a far wall. Glass fronts long-desecrated, they leaned together at precarious angles, waiting for customers who would never savor their contents: cans of bread, corn potage, and packages of palm-sized meat pies, now bloated and misshapen, where not furry with mold. Dust, glass shards, and rat droppings covered the floor, the long counters, and every other available surface in the room, which would have been bright, almost cheerful, had someone not boarded over its wide windows. If Yomichi had lived here, he obviously hadn't used this room in a long time: the only visible footprints on the floor were those I left behind.
I left the eating area through a set of splintered double doors and continued down the main hallway, passing First Aid stations and a chamber partitioned into sleeping berths. Beyond this room, the hallway ended in a t-shaped junction. Here, I paused, unsure of which narrow windowless corridor to take, but then, thought I heard a low mechanical hum coming from somewhere down the corridor to my left.
Yomichi needed a laboratory to produce the Idoron, which meant access to electricity and running water, neither of which I'd seen in abundance since my arrival. As I hurried down the corridor, the humming intensified, becoming a steady vibration by the time I reached the door intended for Authorized Personnel Only.
A door that refused to yield to my touch.